


Dysfunctional Domesticity

by Lancre_witch



Series: Villains Club [3]
Category: MediEvil (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, The Count and Jack make a brief appearance, Ususal warning for language, unusual warning for mental images the author regrets both having and inflicting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 11:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancre_witch/pseuds/Lancre_witch
Summary: Sometimes the problem is a conflict of dominant personalities. Sometimes people are just dicks. In the case of Zarok and Palethorn, it was both. It was a few weeks since the necromancer had found himself in Victorian London and he was still winning friends and influencing people as well as he ever had in Gallowmere.(Or, a couple of scenes that didn't fit anywhere else and set the tone for actual plot progression in part 4)





	Dysfunctional Domesticity

Palethorn still wasn't quite sure what to make of Zarok. He took delight in small cruelties, while Palethorn took satisfaction in large ones. He was petty and bitchy and wouldn't understand the meaning of diplomacy if he was beaten over the head with a dictionary, but there was something about him, something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

The sound of slow footfalls on the creaking stairs dragged him from his thoughts.

"Good morning Zarok."

The necromancer took up residence at the other end of the breakfast table and glared at him halfheartedly over his coffee cup. "A traditional, yet factually incorrect statement."

"Why the hell do I bother?" Palethorn muttered.

Jack neatly sliced the top off a soft boiled egg with a bloodstained claw. "Maybe if you slept at night you wouldn't be so cranky in the morning. You were out later than me."

The glare was redirected and turned up a notch. "I don't recall asking for the opinion of a gutter surgeon with ideas above his station."

"I do not remember agreeing to work with a failed necromancer, and yet here we are," a Slavic voice chimed in.

Palethorn groaned quietly. If the Count was taking Jack's side things really were going south.

He opened his mouth.

"In fact I see little reason to remain. It will soon be dawn." The Count picked up his rainbow umbrella from the coat stand and stalked out, Jack close behind him.

Palethorn closed his mouth. He turned back to Zarok. "You really know how to win friends and influence people, don't you?"

Zarok looked down demurely, as if flattered by his words. "Well, I do always say that it isn't worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it."

Palethorn gave up, picked up the remains of his cup of tea, and retreated to his study.

He had almost two hours of blessed peace before hearing the _click click click_ of high heels approaching at speed, and his knuckles whitened.

The door slammed open and Palethorn's fountain pen cracked in his hand. Zarok's voice grated against something in his very soul.

"Who does the housework in this place?" he demanded. "I found a cockroach in my bedroom! My _bedroom_!"

One day the man would shut up. One day.

"It's an old house. And I find it difficult to keep domestic staff for some reason." He wasn't going to mention the chicken blood. He didn't have to. "I'm surprised a wizard from the middle ages has a problem with insects."

"I just don't like bugs, okay. They freak me out."

"Interesting," Palethorn said without looking up. "You're afraid of insects and women. Ladybugs must render you catatonic."

"Fuck you. How am I supposed to get rid of them?"

"Women? I'm surprised your personality doesn't do that on its own. You've managed it with most men you've met."

"The cockroaches, you bastard."

"I would say put down lemon rinds, but if your natural bitterness hasn't deterred them I doubt mere lemons will."

The door slammed, leaving Palethorn in peace after a final, muttered _"fucker."_

He echoed it under his breath. Zarok wasn't much more abrasive than most of the people he mixed with, but the lanky bastard had an unrivalled ability to send his blood pressure through the roof. The sooner Fortesque was back in the ground and Zarok was out of his hair the better.

*

"What the hell are you doing?"

Zarok stopped in the middle of painting a blood circle on the floor and looked up.

"What the hell are _you_ doing up?"

"I heard a crash and then I find you in the cellar in your nightie."

Zarok looked down at his night dress, then at the magic circle at his feet. He looked back up and smiled. "Do you want to see a trick?"

"The last time you showed me a trick it took two weeks for my eyebrows to grow back, so no, I don't. I do want an explanation for why you're in my cellar at midnight."

"No, you don't."

"I do."

"I doubt that."

Palethorn's fragile patience snapped. "For God's sake man, what are you doing down here?"

Zarok sighed. "If you must know, I was about to summon an incubus."

"An incubus," Palethorn echoed.

"Yes."

"Not a succubus?"

"No."

"You're sure-"

"I know what I'm about," Zarok snapped.

Palethorn digested this information.

"Does that mean you're a practising homosexual?"

Zarok raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. "I don't have to practise, I am very good at it."

There was a look in his eye Palethorn couldn't define and didn't even bother to try. It was too late and he was too tired to care.

"Just... just be quiet about it."

He resisted slamming the door on the way back to his room, but didn't manage to stifle the unsettling mental images running around his head.


End file.
